Chapter 91 What a Fight to the Death Really Means
Chen Jing's eyebrows furrowed slightly, then she picked up the document again. After so long working together, she knew Su Yuanshan wasn't someone who spoke without meaning.
The problem now was clear — she considered this development model problematic, a classic case of losing the watermelon while chasing the sesame seed.
Just then, Su Yuanshan's gentle voice sounded again: "Sister Jing."
"Mm?"
"Let's continue discussing what we were talking about just now," Su Yuanshan said with a smile, motioning to Chen Jing's secretary, An Siying: "Sister An, can I borrow your chair?"
An Siying smiled lightly, immediately standing up to push the chair over.
She had been brought over from the Special Economic Zone by Chen Jing to assist in matters related to marketing, channels, materials, and import-export operations, while Zhou Xiaohui assisted Su Yuanshan with technology and after-sales coordination.
At present, only Su Yuanshan and Chen Jing had secretaries at Yuanchip — and due to limited space, everyone squeezed into the same office.
"Don't bother. I'll move," Chen Jing said, getting up and signaling An Siying to keep working. She walked toward the visitor's sofa.
"Sister Jing, it's like this," Su Yuanshan said as he sat across from her, watching the faint bloodshot strain in her eyes. After a few moments of silence, he smiled:
"Yuanchip is fundamentally different from foreign giants."
Chen Jing nodded: "I know."
"No, you haven't fully grasped it — right now in the Western market, the battle between x86 and PowerPC is raging.
Most ordinary people don't feel it, but we must be keenly aware that this is not just a product or market competition.
It's not even merely a struggle for industrial chain dominance — it's a fight for ecosystem dominance."
Chen Jing's expression sharpened at those words.
"What is an ecosystem?" Su Yuanshan continued. "It's just like nature's biological ecosystem. Intel partnered with Microsoft to form the Wintel alliance, creating a complete ecosystem based on Windows and the x86 architecture.
Motherboard companies, sound card and graphics card makers, PC manufacturers, software developers, IC designers — countless companies all survive within this ecosystem."
"In terms of strategic importance, an ecosystem is far above any industrial chain.
You studied economics, you should grasp this easily."
Chen Jing bit her lip and slowly nodded:
"The industrial chain is linked like a chain, but an ecosystem is branched like a tree."
"Exactly! Microsoft and Intel — or rather, Windows and x86 — are not just standing at the top of the industrial chain. They form the very foundation of the entire ecosystem.
Without them, the whole system collapses."
"But in the industrial chain, say Intel's CPUs disappeared — would the market collapse?"
Chen Jing frowned deeply and shook her head:
"AMD and Cyrix would immediately step up — they're also x86."
Su Yuanshan nodded:
"That's why competition between Intel, AMD, and Cyrix is just a fight for position within the industrial chain.
But the war between x86 and PowerPC is a fight between ecosystems. In ecosystem wars, everyone tied to Windows and x86 is essentially an ally.
In industrial chain competition, if you lose, you can sell yourself for acquisition.
But in an ecosystem war, if you lose — you disappear."
"No one will want a product that doesn't have a market."
"When Intel formed the Wintel alliance, it immediately moved to cancel AMD's x86 license.
Now they're willing to risk antitrust charges to sue AMD and Cyrix — why?
Because if Intel monopolizes x86 CPUs, it becomes the irreplaceable, eternal ruler of the Wintel ecosystem."
Su Yuanshan's vivid metaphors made Chen Jing burst out laughing, but she quickly sobered, her expression thoughtful:
"So everything Yuanchip's doing with EDA is part of evolving toward this?"
"Yes. But Yuanchip itself is different.
Our focus is — and must be — on the domestic market, our home ground.
Because of our backwardness, China doesn't even have a complete IT industrial chain yet, much less an ecosystem."
"So tell me — doesn't Yuanchip have both the responsibility and the opportunity to build that chain?
To create our own ecosystem?"
Chen Jing's eyes widened sharply: "You mean... to defeat Wintel in China?"
"Of course not. Right now, no one can beat the Windows+x86 alliance.
But we can defeat Intel within China."
"If we dominate the domestic end-user market, as China's economy grows, and as our technology matures, we'll have the leverage to challenge Intel's dominance within the Windows+x86 ecosystem — and replace them."
"Meanwhile, we'll walk on two legs — building a separate ecosystem for enterprise markets based on Linux and the YX architecture."
"Remember, Linux only came out last year, but thanks to the contributions of top developers and strong corporate backing, it's advancing rapidly.
Its only weakness now is the lack of a hardware giant to deeply optimize it — to design processors specifically for it."
"One hand grabbing x86, the other hand grabbing Linux — that's our long-term strategy," Su Yuanshan said, spreading his hands and then making a tight fist.
"Sister Jing — now do you understand?"
Su Yuanshan didn't dare mention yet another vision he had:
That one day, a future empire built on Android + YX would dominate the handheld device world —
that would be a story for ten years down the line.
He didn't want to scare her too soon.
Chen Jing gazed silently at Su Yuanshan.
In his eyes, she saw the brilliance of a thousand stars.
Slowly, a smile bloomed across her face.
Almost instinctively, she reached out to flick Su Yuanshan's forehead — but halfway, she realized how inappropriate that would be and instead turned it into a gentle fist.
Covering her faint blush, she laughed softly:
"I honestly don't know what you've got inside that head of yours.
You make it sound so easy, so doable, even though it's ridiculously hard."
Su Yuanshan grinned, bumping his right fist lightly against hers:
"Let's do it! Once the plan is ready, you and I will visit Jiangyin.
I'll introduce you to Wang Chaoxin — that guy is the real deal."
"Mm!"
...
Wang Chaoxin's awesomeness wasn't just in how he had rolled out over a million pagers in less than six months.
When he heard Yuanchip was building new facilities, he immediately approved a huge investment — practically writing a check for "half a small target."
He had also spun off Zhongxin's commercial IC design division to set up a new subsidiary in Shanghai called Yuanzhong Microelectronics Design.
And he wasn't done yet.
Leveraging the massive favor Yuanchip did for Huajing in foreign exchange dealings, Wang persuaded Huajing to transfer all of its packaging and testing business to Zhongxin's new packaging unit.
He even bought Huajing's aging packaging lines at bargain prices, leaving only a small research group with equipment.
Now, Wang was preparing to spin off the packaging division as a separate professional packaging company.
He was already contacting German suppliers to purchase cutting-edge ceramic packaging technologies and equipment — though progress was reportedly slow.
During a recent call, Wang Chaoxin even shared his vision:
He wanted to build a full packaging and testing laboratory — and hoped Yuanchip would support the development of new testing environments.
Of course, Su Yuanshan was fully supportive.
After all, a beast like Wang Chaoxin, once unleashed with enough money, would tear into any industry he touched — carving out fat chunks of market share and establishing himself like a crouching tiger.
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